Just got back from Boston and had a great time at my first PAX. Going to make it a regular trip (to pax east).

What did you attend/play?

Friday:Exhibition FloorPenny Arcade Q&A #1 - damn these guys were funny in person. love the comic and can appreciate it more now that I can put the human to the cartoon.From Background to Center Stage: Building Game Worlds As Main Characters - great panel discussion on Bioshock InfiniteJoystiq Podcast Live - hadn't heard the podcast prior to this event and only seen the sight through links here and co-optimus. pretty funny panel plus they gave away a 3DSGiant Bombcast - meh, could have done without that one
Friday Night Concerts - made it in for MCFrontalot. great show.

Sat.:Penny Arcade Make a Strip - fantastically awesome. Mike made the strip in an hour... makes me wonder what they do for the rest of a regular work day.Deus Ex Human Revolution live demo - looked really good, will be picking it up when released.
Exhibition floor and cruised around the tabletop area

Sunday:Exhibition floor, tabletop - stopped to watch some Battlestar Galactica being played. Looked really good but to buy it, wouldn't fit in my suitcaseDead-Tree Dinosaur Cartoonist - Bill Amend's Foxtrot slideshow. Pretty funny but the only reason why we were there was for the next event:X-play Live show - great show, q&a, review of DA2, they had some video footage of their studio that was funny. Episode is supposed to air next saturday.

Penny Arcade Make a Strip - fantastically awesome. Mike made the strip in an hour... makes me wonder what they do for the rest of a regular work day.

You were at their semiannual gaming convention, do you really need to wonder?

Panels:

Interactive Drama: Dialogue as Gameplay - A great discussion about how to make conversations more interactive, natural and interesting, helmed by the lead Writer for Bioware's Dragon Age: Origins. One of the most memorable points was made by the Bioware guy, who said that the action in games is usually designed to make you feel like a movie badass, so they design conversation systems to make you feel like a movie character, too. It definitely encapsulates Bioware's work on dialogue systems.

Parsely Games - Action Castle - An retro text adventure acted out by a hilarious host and played by the collective audience. You stand in line for your turn to voice one simple command, like "Pick Up Fishingpole" or "North," then it's back to the end of the line. It's more fun than it sounds!

[b]Females on Female Characters[b] - An interesting discussion of how intelligent gamer women view a number of female characters.

Where's My Spaceship: Adventure's in Video Game Costuming - Crabcat Industries, the people who make one of the most impressive (female) Shepard costumes now makes one of the most impressive (female) Hawkes. Lots of technical costuming discussion but plenty of good humor as well.

Games:

Orcs Must Die! - Third-person tower defense with traps. The game I saw that I most want released right now (I skipped the Portal 2 demo). Even without co-op or a level editor at launch it should still be a fun, clever experience.

Trenched - More third-person tower defense, this time with mechs. More combat focused, and this one has co-op and hats (hats were big in indie games this year. Thanks TF2!). Double-fine is really cranking out the small games these days, and each one has a radically different style and theme. One of them is going to hit big soon, not sure this will be the one, though.

Spy Party - Thrilled that I finally got a chance to play. I lost as both Spy and Sniper but I learned from my mistakes and can't wait to try again. The metagame for this title is going to be crazy.

Slambolt Scrappers - Just as fun as it was last year, I just wish it were coming out for something other than PSN. Get on Steam, dammit!

Smuggle Truck - An iOS game where you have to bring illegal immigrants across the border. They've embraced the controversy and are contentedly tongue in cheek. Best feature: A "legal immigration" mode, which brings up a nineteen year countdown timer.

You were at their semiannual gaming convention, do you really need to wonder?

I think they have people for that, but a big part of what they do is "research" for the comic. Their job is to stay informed, and play games. Since the comic is mostly topical one-off style jokes, they have to keep apprised of the latest info. It's like the writers for something like The Daily Show. Just writing that show isn't their only job, they also have to watch hours and hours of Fox News to know what to write about.

I'd be surprised if they were completely hands-off when it came to things like PAX, Child's Play, etc. I could be wrong but I imagine some of their work day is eaten up by meetings, too. Then there are the side projects they do, like the Dragon Age comic, the occasional foray into making games (Precipice, Poker Night, that new card game with Notch), the web series, media interaction, etc.

I was contacting Goronmon early but i got confused with the lines, and by the time I knew where I was, I was close to the front, and didn't want to risk leaving and not getting into Portal 2 immediately (which I did)

From there I jumped from line to line. Will write up the other places I did soon.

So now we're positing that the deliberate stagnation of technology is a good thing? Hardware makers should just stop making new shit why, exactly? Because you're too cheap to buy a new card every few years?

Wow guys, what a weekend. Ran into Goronmon on friday and chatted a bit that was nice.

My group bought 3 camcorders as we were working on the PAX community DVD crew...We have over 20 hours of footage. When I'm done soldiering through it all, I'll post a link to my Youtube for anyone who's interested.

No, but if you looked closely enough you'd have seen me right next to him filming it. And then if you listened really closely, when Jerry asked if this was being filmed for the next years DVD like some kind of temporal loop, you'd have heard me scream "YUP!"

He was the guy that started the DVD's in 08 I think? This was only my second time helping out.

Did you notice anybody walking around in a light up Protoman helmet with a video camera?

So now we're positing that the deliberate stagnation of technology is a good thing? Hardware makers should just stop making new shit why, exactly? Because you're too cheap to buy a new card every few years?

We did a lot, but the main draw for me are the concerts. I don't get a chance to see many of my favorite bands where I live, so PAX is almost as much about the music for me as it is everything else. I posted this montage over in the Colonizers thread, but in case you missed it/give a damn:

I also have something like 4 hours worth of really high quality footage from the various concerts over the weekend, including the entire Protomen and McFrontalot shows from friday night, and the entire Armcannon show from the Jamspace on Saturday. A sample:

Just for the record, I plan on going to both Prime and East 2012, and if we get an early enough start, I can print us up some t-shirts. Just throwing that out there.

It was awesome.
Had my GB signed by Bit Shifter and other gameboy artists at the Chiptune Showcase
Watched part of the 1UP Presents: Retronauts Vs. 16 Bits
Caught part of Inside Game Localization - FF12, Tactics Ogre, and Beyond!
I should have stayed after that.. They were showing Scott Pilgrim at the merman room.

On saturday, Live Demo of Deus Ex: Human Revolution (where I asked a stupid question)
Careers in Paper Gaming.. where Steve Jackson offered me a job for bringing him a 5 gallons of water. (he actually just gave me a Munchkin Coin, but I might take him up on that offer if I ever move to the states!)
Geek Parenting -- very interesting panel, lots of game to try out with the kids.
Videogame Antiques Roadshow -- It was a great concept. Very fun.
JoCo signed my brother's "Your brains" t-shirt, he was probably on his way to the bathroom.

D&D Virtual Table Is Here! -- no it wasn't. They had a server problem, so no live showing of the Virtual Table. Just a recording of a game that happened before.

Played Zelda on the 3ds, watched the Portal 2 preview, plus lots of analog gaming and interesting indie stuff.

No shows for us this year, no party either. It kinda sucked that our debit cards weren't working at the ATMs but we survived.